The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for detecting and displaying local features of video and a recording medium storing the method.
Amid rapid progress in television technology and dramatic presentation technique, special video effects, including the use of blinking light and rapid change in scene as seen in animation programs, are now being used in an increasing frequency. When a human examines the video by feeding it one frame at a time to detect such special effects and if the check can be made at a speed of one frame per second, checking a two-hour movie will take 48 hours, which makes it physically impossible to examine all video programs to be broadcast.
Under these circumstances, conventional methods and apparatus use a subliminal image detecting device, such as disclosed in JP-A-9-74575, by taking advantage of the fact that frames making up a scene with blinking light, or a flicker scene, can each be regarded as a short-duration shot.
In the above-described conventional technology, when extracting local features of a video, it is possible to detect parts of the video whose feature quantity exceeds a predetermined reference level. However, because the user cannot know the actual feature quantities of the extracted frames or static images, he or she cannot guess to what extent the frames in question exceed the reference value. Further, in a flicker scene that consists of a large number of static images representing local features, although a list of these static images is displayed, it is difficult for the user to determine the range of the flicker scene.